12 year old Suspended for bringing Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit to Public School!!! (1 Viewer)

[Shayne Lebrun]

Well, all the kid needs to do is wait until a teacher brings in a newspaper, find either a underwear/lingere ad, or the 'classifieds,' then demand that the teacher be suspeneded w/o pay for three days for bringing in sexually suggestive material.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

Hell the first gun I fired was a .22 rifle in the school cafeteria in 5th grade. It was part of our final for Hunter's Safety. This was in '88. When I was in 8th grade we made our own bullets in shop class, and throwing knives I might add. These were all class projects, and I wasn't even a hunter.

I for one am thankful that I went to school when I did, and don't have to go through the crap that students are having to put up with now. I won't have kids of my own for some time but when/if I do, I sure hope that I can find a place to raise them that doesn't jump on every little act like it is the end of the world.

 

[Chet_F]

"I also have a problem with how much suspension is used. It's just pushing kids away from school."

NO DOUBT!!!! I would have LOVED that when I was a kid. Instead they stuck me in the Nurses office and I got to stare at a wall for a day. I was absolutely, positively bored out of my mind..........and that was enough punishment for me.

 

[Malcolm R]

from another article about the event:

 

[ThomasC]

I fired a BB gun in physics class in my junior or senior year of high (I took two years worth, different class, same teacher), and so did the others in the class. I'm proud to say that I hit the target.

 

[Ted Lee]

for those who built and fired icbm's ( ) etc in school -- don't forget those were school sponsored activities.

it's not the same thing as what this kid did. he broke a school policy.

again, not condoning the school's actions - just pointing out the difference.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

When I was in high school, (graduated in 1999) people that got suspended typically told me that it was pretty much just like having a vacation, unless they got an in school suspention which was pretty much agreed sucked.

There are worse things a kid could've done obviously, but if this was school policy then some kind of action had to take place, because the policy was disobeyed. Whether or not I would like or agree with that policy is a different issue, but I will admit that it should've been enforced.

 

[Vincent Matis]

"Our youth now love luxury, they have bad manners, contempt for authority, disrespect for elder people. Children nowadays are tyrants. They no longer rise when their elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers."

Socrates, 5th century BC

 

[Mark Schermerhorn]

"Kids these days."

The rallying cry of adults for the past 500 generations.

 

[JonZ]

"My dad handed me a Playboy when I was about 12 and I turned out just fine"

My stepfather (early 80s)had a stack going back to the early 70s. Neither him nor my mother ever stopped me from looking at them.

 

[Erik.Ha]

Typical arrogant buerocratic ass...

 

[Dome Vongvises]

There are two things to blame: the policy and those that put created the policy in the first place. That's why I really don't get angry with lawyers anymore. Actually I still do if I were to take discretion into consideration.

 

[Brian Lawrence]

I would think that calling the kids parents and giving him a few nights detention, would make a lot more sense.

As a kid, I always considered time out of school to be a reward, Having to spend an additional 2 hours in school was punishment.


Now if I where the kids teacher and he brought in the Swimsuit issue, I would of course have to confiscate it

 

[Erik.Ha]

The problem is, the school has stolen the parents right to determine what's appropriate for their own children. If the teacher feels the kid has done something wrong (and nobody else was HURT by it) fine, call me, let me know, and I'LL decide if what the kid did was inapropriate for how I've raised him. Not the school. Clearly, nobody was hurt by looking at things the kids can see this summer at the beach. I guess if they have a field trip to the beach the girls will have to wear burlap sacks? Can the kid bring a surfing magazine? What if he was interested in fasion design, and brought a "vogue" with him (they'd never touch this one because they'd be afraid he was gay, and then they'd be discriminating against him).



Give me a frikin' break! Has this guy been living under a rock for the last 30 years? I've never had a subscription to Sports Illustrated, and I've never actually gone LOOKING for the issue, but I'm pretty sure I've seen it every year, just becuase it is EVERYWHERE! You can't AVOID this issue since its announced as a NEWS STORY every year. He's a damned lier.

 

[Ken Chan]

You can't have looked through this year's issue very carefully, because there are quite a few photos of things you won't see at the beach, unless your beaches are much different than mine. Not that I mind at all; I like tasteful pictures of nude women with their bathing suits hanging from a nearby hook, or lying in a tiny crumpled pile next to them. I suppose I'm typically heterosexual in that way.

I don't recall exactly when it happened, but the Swimsuit Issue changed from one of the regular weekly issues with a swimsuit feature, into a special issue devoted almost entirely to the swimsuits -- on or off. And I would guess the guy must have heard of the issue, with all the attention it gets, and perhaps seen a cover, but I have no problem believing he has never actually looked inside one. You might infer something about him not being curious, but he would have to actually pick it up to look inside.

And surely schools can have their own rules, as long as those rules are not unreasonable and well-publicized? So proper behavior for the child at school would be the subset of those things that are considered proper by both the parents and the school?

Now, whether this particular rule, both how it is defined and how it was judged to apply in this case, and the punishment for breaking the rule were good -- that's debatable.

 

[chris_everett]

This is why I hate "zero tolerance". It never really is "zero". I think the larger problem is that schools have no formal justice system, or any sort of rule of law. Discipline is handed out on a totally arbitrary basis with no regard for past history, evidence, established de-facto standards, or anything at all that adults take for granted. In this case the rule was vauge, did not establish any sort of standard, was almost certinly not enforced evenly, had no formal appeal process (as far as I can tell)...

And some people ask what's wrong with our schools......... (thinking about the textbook thread)......

 

[Scott Leopold]

This story has been getting extensive coverage on the talk radio stations around here, and the above articles have been really good about leaving out pertinent details. The kid was originally to have a one day, in-school suspension, but when the kid acted up about that, the two day, alternative school suspension was decided on. The mother was outraged and told her son to refuse the punishment. He went in and told the principal he refused to go to the alternate school, and chose to use a bit of vulgar language while doing so. That led to the three day suspension--not the actual posession of the magazine.

As for the superintendent's comments, last time I checked, the principal and superintendent were in charge of running the schools. If the kid is a discipline problem, and the mother supports this, then he deserves everything he gets.

As for punishing the kid at all for having the Swimsuit Issue, as a parent, I would not punish my son for that. As a principal, I'd give the kid a light punishment--like a one day, in-school suspension to show potentially angry parents that I took some action--but let the kid's parents decide if they wanted to actually punish the kid. My son just turned 13, and this incident was brought up by one of his teachers. We had a long talk about it, and I basically told him that I had no problem with him looking at the magazine. I even told him that he was welcome to my old Playboys if he could find them (I did, however, let him know that if I found them in his room, I'd make him read every article and write a report on it). I think forcing kids to view the human form as something taboo is a terribly unhealthy attitude. However, I fully support schools punishing discipline problems.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Now the 3-day punishment makes sense, Scott. Thanks for that. I can see the initial news story saying that it 'lead' to a 3-day suspension.

But breaking the initial school rule still doesn't hold any water for me. I cannot justify SI being lewd or obscene, or whatever. This would probably be the principal's own standards, and even if he took a vote among his teachers on it, he'd probably loose. Unless the school rule on this covers a much broader category than we've heard, but I doubt that.

Glenn

 

[Mark Sherman]

OK.



I want to kow the number of Girls who have benn suspended for bringing in Vogue, Seventeen, Glamour, Cosmo,or victoria secret catalogs.My guess its a big fat goose egg.

What happens when they start taking SEX ed in school are the "PARTS" going to be blurred out.

Have a kid bring in a copy of National Geographic that does a story on tribe somewhere in the world.


What if he brought in a copy of the sears catalog to show his buddies the Stereo he's getting or the cool new saw his dad got. But wait there are barely dressed half naked woman in that tooooo. would he get the hook for that.





This is just a big steaming pile of BULLSHIT if you ask me. The whole thing SUCKS

 

[Ted Todorov]

I don't know where you live, but here in New York State, all state beaches are by definition topless. The NY State court of appeals ruled (about 10 - 15 years ago) that any place where men could go topless, women could as well. This of course applies not just to beaches -- Central Park falls under the same category. Federal beaches (Fire Island, etc.) tend to be nude. Now, that said, there is a lot of voluntary segragation going on -- people know which side of the beach is the "family" area, and which the nude area. And women (unless they are Time Out NY reporters), tend not to walk around NYC topless on hot summer days, even though it is legal.

Ted